As a candidate for Colorado governor, Walker Stapleton has touted a distinguished biography: two terms as state treasurer, a business degree from Harvard and a long family history of public service.
But there is one aspect of his family’s past that Mr. Stapleton has largely avoided mentioning: His great-grandfather, Benjamin Stapleton, a five-time mayor of this city, was also a powerful member of the Ku Klux Klan, a bespectacled former judge who helped the group seize control of Colorado government in what is now considered one of the state’s darkest periods.